US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will face lawmakers questions this week on the ongoing response to the outbreak of swine flu in several states, a key US Senate panel said Monday. Napolitano will go before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday at 10:00 am (1400 GMT) as public health officials look to contain the dangerous illness and calm the public.
The announcement came as US health authorities said they had confirmed 40 cases of swine flu in five US states, but stressed that new cases results from increased testing and not from any spread in the disease. Richard Besser, acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the states were New York, Ohio, Kansas, Texas and California.
Besser also announced that the CDC had released 25 percent of a federal drugs stockpile to states fighting swine flu, distributing 11 million courses of antiviral medication. Authorities in Michigan, meanwhile, said they had a "probable" case on their hands and that they awaited results of CDC testing on a state laboratory finding that a 34-year-old woman had come down with the disease.